For more than a thousand years the Jews have been objects of prejudice, hatred, bloody persecutions and massacres. Even today, despite the horrors of Hitler's holocaust, groups of neo-Nazis continue to form.

In this well illustrated volume historian Roberto Finzi looks at the religious origins of this prejudice and investigates how anti-Semitism has spread even in secular, educated societies. The book provides a succinct history of the most significant, expressions of modern anti-Semitism from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day, including the infamous Dreyfus case, a microcosm of the prejudice in the heart of Europe that led to the vicious pogroms that swept across its Eastern half and eventually gave rise to the racist ideology of the Nazis.

This brief volume can describe only the tip of the iceberg of the anti-Jewish feeling which has tragically shaped our modern world, yet Finzi's cogent analysis goes a long way toward helping us identify the elements that compose its great submerged body.

Roberto Finzi teaches economic history at the University of Trieste in Italy, and has published several works which touch upon anti-Semitism, most recently a book about Italian universities and race laws.